Musings from the Stress Less staff regarding the current state of stress in our lives and what we are or are not doing about it. Contributed by psychologists,exercise physiologists,dietitians,and just plain marketing folks.

Monday, June 25, 2018

Don’t Choke!

When the pressure is on, focusing too much
on what you’re doing can cause you to choke.

At times we have all been under high pressure to perform. Sometimes we succeed and other times we fail
or “choke” under the pressure. Why do
we choke? Some researchers think we
choke because the pressure distracts us from focusing on what we are
doing. Other researchers believe we
choke because the pressure causes us to focus too much on what we are
doing instead of “just doing it” without thinking too much. To try and figure out which explanation is
correct, researchers from Arizona State University recently conducted an
experiment.

What was the research about?

The experiment had people practice putting a golf ball as close to a target
spot as possible. After participants
finished practicing, the experimenters put them all under high pressure by
offering them double experiment credit if they performed very well on their
next 10 putts. While they took their 10
putts, some participants were told to count backwards from 100 to keep them
distracted. Results showed that
participants who were distracted actually did better than those who were
not distracted. The distraction helped
because it kept them from focusing too much on what they were doing and
overanalyzing their putting.

Why should it matter to me?

When you are under pressure to perform well, try not to think too much about
what you are doing, or that may cause you to choke. One thing you might try is distracting yourself, which should
free you to go ahead and “just do it” instead of nervously overanalyzing your
performance.

Monday, June 18, 2018

Venting Anger

When you feel angry beating up on a pillow
or punching bag actually makes you angrier.

What should you do when you get angry?
Many people believe the best way to safely get rid of anger is by a
process called catharsis, or venting your anger. For example an angry person could work off their anger by doing
things like exercising, beating on a pillow, hitting a punching bag or just
screaming as loud as they could.
Although this advice is common in the popular media, does it really work
at reducing anger? To answer that
question researchers from Iowa State University and Case Western University
conducted an experiment.

What was the research about?

Participants in the experiment first read a newspaper article, created by
the experimenters, which talked about catharsis. Some participants read an article that said a Harvard
psychologist had determined catharsis worked very well at relieving people’s
anger (the Pro-catharsis article).
Other participants read an article that said the Harvard psychologist
had determined catharsis did not work at relieving people’s anger (the
Anti-catharsis article). These articles
were used to get participants to believe, or not believe, that catharsis
worked.

Next participants wrote a short essay discussing their views on abortion and
another participant in a different room (who didn’t really exist) graded their
essay. To make the participants feel
angry; their essays were always returned with a handwritten comment saying, “This
is one of the worst essays I have every read!”
After getting this bad feedback on their essay participants were given 2
minutes to hit a punching bag, if they wanted to, while the experimenter prepared
the next part of the study.

To see how aggressive people would be, the participants played a game
against another person. The participant
had to hit a button faster than their opponent did; and if they won, they could
blast their opponent with a loud noise as punishment. Some participants were told their opponent was the person who had
graded their essay, and others were told the opponent was not the person
who had graded their essay. The “opponent”
was actually a computer that randomly let the participant win half of the time.

Results showed that participants who thought catharsis worked, and had hit
the punching bag, were actually more aggressive against their opponent
in the reaction time game. They blasted
their opponent with louder noise than participants who read the Anti-catharsis
article and had hit the punching bag.
Who the opponent was didn’t matter.
Even when the opponent was not the person who graded their essay,
the Pro-catharsis participants who had hit the punching bag still blasted him
with louder noise.

Why should it matter to me?

When we feel angry many of us are tempted to vent our anger, thinking it
will help us calm down. Unfortunately,
this venting actually builds up the anger and makes our problem worse. A better way to calm down is to get away
from the situation and relax. Later,
after we have cooled down, we are better able to constructively deal with the
source of our anger.

Monday, June 11, 2018

Certain
stressful events cause different cardiovascular reactions in men and women.

Although many people have to deal
with the same types of stressful situations in their daily lives, not everybody
is affected the same way by those situations.For instance, men seem to be more concerned with performance-oriented
situations, such as work challenges and tasks involving physical fitness.Women, however, seem to be more concerned
with socially-oriented situations, such as marital conflict and physical
appearance.If men and women differ in
how stressful they view certain events, their bodies may also react differently
to those events.To find out,
researchers from BrownUniversity
and OhioStateUniversity conducted an experiment.

What was the research about?

One body reaction commonly
associated with stress is an increase in cardiovascular activity, such as heart
rate and blood pressure.Therefore, the
researchers decided to measure participants' cardiovascular reactions to
different stressful events.To begin the
experiment participants sat in a comfortable chair and listened to soft music
for 10 minutes.During this time the
researchers measured the participant's heart rate, diastolic blood pressure,
systolic blood pressures, and mean arterial pressure.These measurements served as a stress-free
baseline the researchers could then compare later measurements against.After the baseline readings were taken,
participants completed four different tasks.Three of the tasks were designed to be performance-oriented and one task
was designed to be appearance-oriented.For the performance tasks, participants had to do subtraction problems
in their head while being timed, trace a star pattern while only looking at its
mirror image, and squeeze a handgrip for 2.5 minutes.For the appearance-oriented task,
participants had to give a four minute speech on what they liked and disliked
about their body and physical appearance.After participants finished each task, the researchers again measured
their cardiovascular responses.

The results showed that men's
cardiovascular system reacted more than women's during the performance-oriented
tasks.In other words, men's
cardiovascular readings rose above their baseline
levels during the performance-oriented tasks, whereas women's cardiovascular
readings did not rise.During the
appearance-oriented tasks, however, women's cardiovascular readings rose above their baseline levels, whereas men's did
not.These results seem to suggest that
men respond more to performance situations, whereas women respond more to
appearance situations.

Why should it matter to me?

When men and women work together,
it's important for them to realize how each gender reacts to certain types of
situations.Situations that don't seem
stressful to men may be very stressful for women and vice versa.Being sensitive to these differences can help
reduce annoyance at another person's stressed out reaction to a seemingly
"harmless" event and even prepare working partners to better help
each other cope.

Friday, June 8, 2018

Can “living
in the moment” reduce stress?

The term “mindfulness” has
its roots in the Buddhist tradition. It refers to being aware of and paying
attention to what is taking place in the present. If you are like many people,
you probably spend little time in a mindful state. It
is hard not to be distracted by what the world is throwing at us on a constant
basis. Try this – spend the next five minutes in a quiet space. Pay
attention to what is going on around you, AT THE PRESENT TIME. Do not think
about what you are having for dinner. Do not think about that argument you had
with your spouse the other day. Do not think about how to get your kids to
study more. Do not think about whether you will have enough money after
retirement. It’s hard, isn’t it? With this said, there is evidence
that being able to at least approach a mindful state of mind can have psychological
benefits, including the reduction of stress.

What was the research about?

Kirk Brown and Richard Ryan, of the
University of Rochester,
conducted a formal test of the psychological benefits of mindfulness. What they
found was that people who reported being “more mindful” than others
also reported having positive psychological traits as high self-esteem, higher
life satisfaction, more positive feelings, less anxiety, and less depression.
They next tested whether inducing a mindful state can
alleviate stress during an extremely stressful period – the time
following cancer surgery. They trained a group of cancer patients to enter a mindful state. What they found was that indeed, patients who
were trained to become more mindful did, in fact, report less stress. This
suggests that being more mindful can reduce stress, even during the most
stressful times of our lives.

Why should it matter to me?

The results of this study strongly
support the notion that mindfulness may have powerful psychological benefits.
The fact that it appears to reduce stress in cancer patients is evidence that
it may have a wide range of therapeutic applications. You may be able to reduce
your own level of stress, in addition to reaping the other psychological
rewards of mindfulness by practicing techniques designed to induce a state of
mindfulness in yourself.

Source: Brown, Kirk, W., & Ryan, Richard, M.
(2003).The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological
well-being. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 84, 822-848.

About Me

Since 1995, Stress Less® (www.stress-less.com) has been helping folks around the world to feel better and to get into control of their health, both mentally and physically .
The blog authors are various staff members and consultants who have a few things to say about the trends,products and programs in stress management.